Review of "Tour #1" by Extreme Tornado Tours

• Review by: tornado one
• Tour Operator: Extreme Tornado Tours
• Tour: Tour #1
• Year: 2021
• Validated: This review has NOT been validated.

General review

Even though the weather produced a cold front that extended down to the Mexico border, the guides seem to navigate us to a storm on all chasing days capable of producing a tornado Day 1, Day 3 Day 9 and Day 10. Although the tornado never touched down, there was no lack of excitement. One negative was that on the down days, the our guides normally did not ask the guests for a consensus of available tour sites, only just that we are going. We stopped at a casino, Greensburg, The Riverwalk and Couple famous restaurants on our travel days. All and all they did a good job finding things to do. Being fair, I don’t think any of the other tours operate much different than this one. All guides were approachable, they were friendly and ready to go when it was time to chase a storm.

Vehicle review:

Because of the cold front, we had to drive 3000+ miles during the tour to find adequate storms. The vehicles seem to be well maintained. The seats were basically comfortable, some leg room issues. USB and 110vac plugs were provided. The drivers seem to drive the speed limit or 10+ over during storm chasing. Safety issue, The driver would take pictures of the storm while driving. When chased the storms we would get as close as possible sometimes a little too close. For me they didn’t seem to have a good exit route in the event of a tornado touchdown. I will say, they seem to explain it in a way that we weren’t in trouble and had control of the situation. These guys love this stuff and are confident in what they do sometimes too confident. If you are an adrenaline junkie this is your tour.

Tour guide review:

The tour guides seem to be very knowledgeable. They answered any question asked. However, the morning briefings seemed to be presented impromptu, and sometimes disjointed for the novice chaser. It would of helped to have a tornado development guide with definitions and different ways tornadoes develop. The vans were capable of having a microphone for all to hear but was not used. Only the two people up front could hear any discussions. Meal locations were decided with little input from the guests. We ate mostly fast food or Convenience store food. We did however, eat 4 times at a nice sit down restaurant. Many dinners wouldn’t begin 8-9pm and end at 10-11pm. Especially on chase days, as the chase wouldn’t end before 8-10pm . The mornings would usually begin at 11am without a discussion whether if we were to eat breakfast before or if our 1st stop was going to be a food stop. Lunch was usually done 2 hours after even though we just ate breakfast. If you like fast food this is your trip. Bathroom breaks were plentiful during non chase times. It was explained to me that sometimes hotel quality might suffer a little in some of the areas we were to travel due to a lack of availability. But if available, we would stay at a quality motel. Well, the hotels we stayed at 6 out of the 9 times were less than desirable. Most had a lot worn decor, dirty floors, or sink, or tub, and sometimes the sheets that had odors. If this doesn’t bother you, then you will be fine. Even though a Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn, or comparable nice hotel within 1 mile of the undesirable and for $10-$15 more a night. I think the hotels we stayed at was a little misstated by the tour director prior to sign up.

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